Theodor Seuss Geisel (/ˈsuːs/ or /zɔɪs//ˈɡaɪzəl/(listen);[2][3][4] March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991)[5] was an American
children's author, political cartoonist, and animator. He is known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen nameDoctor Seuss (/ˈsuːs/[4] or /ˈzuːs/[6] abbreviated Dr. Seuss). His work includes many of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death.[7]

Geisel attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1925.[15] At Dartmouth, he joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity[9] and the humor magazine Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, eventually rising to the rank of editor-in-chief.[9] While at Dartmouth, he was caught drinking gin with nine friends in his room.[16] At the time, the possession and consumption of alcohol was illegal under Prohibition laws, which remained in place between 1920 and 1933. As a result of this infraction, Dean Craven Laycock insisted that Geisel resign from all extracurricular activities, including the Jack-O-Lantern.[17] To continue working on the magazine without the administration's knowledge, Geisel began signing his work with the pen name "Seuss". He was encouraged in his writing by professor of rhetoric W. Benfield Pressey, whom he described as his "big inspiration for writing" at Dartmouth.[18]

Upon graduating from Dartmouth, he entered Lincoln College, Oxford, intending to earn a D.Phil. in English literature.[19][20] At Oxford, he met Helen Palmer, who encouraged him to give up becoming an English teacher in favor of pursuing drawing as a career.[19] She later recalled that "Ted's notebooks were always filled with these fabulous animals. So I set to work diverting him; here was a man who could draw such pictures; he should be earning a living doing that."[19]

Early career

Geisel left Oxford without earning a degree and returned to the United States in February 1927,[21] where he immediately began submitting writings and drawings to magazines, book publishers, and advertising agencies.[22] Making use of his time in Europe, he pitched a series of cartoons called Eminent Europeans to Life magazine, but the magazine passed on it. His first nationally published cartoon appeared in the July 16, 1927, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. This single $25 sale encouraged Geisel to move from Springfield to New York City.[23] Later that year, Geisel accepted a job as writer and illustrator at the humor magazine Judge, and he felt financially stable enough to marry Helen.[24] His first cartoon for Judge appeared on October 22, 1927, and the Geisels were married on November 29. Geisel's first work signed "Dr. Seuss" was published in Judge about six months after he started working there.[25]

In early 1928, one of Geisel's cartoons for Judge mentioned Flit, a common bug spray at the time manufactured by Standard Oil of New Jersey.[26] According to Geisel, the wife of an advertising executive in charge of advertising Flit saw Geisel's cartoon at a hairdresser's and urged her husband to sign him.[27] Geisel's first Flit ad appeared on May 31, 1928, and the campaign continued sporadically until 1941. The campaign's catchphrase "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" became a part of popular culture. It spawned a song and was used as a punch line for comedians such as Fred Allen and Jack Benny. As Geisel gained notoriety for the Flit campaign, his work was in demand and began to appear regularly in magazines such as Life, Liberty, and Vanity Fair.[28]

The money Geisel earned from his advertising work and magazine submissions made him wealthier than even his most successful Dartmouth classmates.[28] The increased income allowed the Geisels to move to better quarters and to socialize in higher social circles.[29] They became friends with the wealthy family of banker Frank A. Vanderlip. They also traveled extensively: by 1936, Geisel and his wife had visited 30 countries together. They did not have children, neither kept regular office hours, and they had ample money. Geisel also felt that traveling helped his creativity.[30]

Geisel's success with the Flit campaign led to more advertising work, including for other Standard Oil products like Essomarine boat fuel and Essolube Motor Oil and for other companies like the Ford Motor Company, NBC Radio Network, and Holly Sugar.[31] His first foray into books, Boners, a collection of children's sayings that he illustrated, was published by Viking Press in 1931. It topped The New York Times non-fiction bestseller list and led to a sequel, More Boners, published the same year. Encouraged by the books' sales and positive critical reception, Geisel wrote and illustrated an ABC book featuring "very strange animals" that failed to interest publishers.[32]

In 1936, Geisel and his wife were returning from an ocean voyage to Europe when the rhythm of the ship's engines inspired the poem that became his first children's book: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.[33] Based on Geisel's varied accounts, the book was rejected by between 20 and 43 publishers.[34][35] According to Geisel, he was walking home to burn the manuscript when a chance encounter with an old Dartmouth classmate led to its publication by Vanguard Press.[36] Geisel wrote four more books before the US entered World War II. This included The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins in 1938, as well as The King's Stilts and The Seven Lady Godivas in 1939, all of which were in prose, atypically for him. This was followed by Horton Hatches the Egg in 1940, in which Geisel returned to the use of poetry.

World War II-era work

As World War II began, Geisel turned to political cartoons, drawing over 400 in two years as editorial cartoonist for the left-leaning New York City daily newspaper, PM.[37] Geisel's political cartoons, later published in Dr. Seuss Goes to War, denounced Hitler and Mussolini and were highly critical of non-interventionists ("isolationists"), most notably Charles Lindbergh, who opposed US entry into the war.[38] One cartoon[39] depicted Japanese Americans being handed TNT after a "call from home", while other cartoons deplored the racism at home against Jews and blacks that harmed the war effort.[citation needed] His cartoons were strongly supportive of President Roosevelt's handling of the war, combining the usual exhortations to ration and contribute to the war effort with frequent attacks on Congress[40] (especially the Republican Party),[41] parts of the press (such as the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Washington Times-Herald),[42] and others for criticism of Roosevelt, criticism of aid to the Soviet Union,[43][44] investigation of suspected Communists,[45] and other offences that he depicted as leading to disunity and helping the Nazis, intentionally or inadvertently.

In May 1954, Life magazine published a report on illiteracy among school children which concluded that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. William Ellsworth Spaulding was the director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin (he later became its chairman), and he compiled a list of 348 words that he felt were important for first-graders to recognize. He asked Geisel to cut the list to 250 words and to write a book using only those words.[49] Spaulding challenged Geisel to "bring back a book children can't put down".[50] Nine months later, Geisel completed The Cat in the Hat, using 236 of the words given to him. It retained the drawing style, verse rhythms, and all the imaginative power of Geisel's earlier works but, because of its simplified vocabulary, it could be read by beginning readers. The Cat in the Hat and subsequent books written for young children achieved significant international success and they remain very popular today. In 2009, Green Eggs and Ham sold 540,366 copies, The Cat in the Hat sold 452,258 copies, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960) sold 409,068 copies—outselling the majority of newly published children's books.[51]

Geisel went on to write many other children's books, both in his new simplified-vocabulary manner (sold as Beginner Books) and in his older, more elaborate style.

In 1956, Dartmouth awarded Geisel with an honorary doctorate, finally legitimizing the "Dr." in his pen name.

Geisel's wife Helen had a long struggle with illnesses, including cancer and emotional pain over Geisel's affair with Audrey Stone Dimond. On October 23, 1967, Helen committed suicide; Geisel married Dimond on June 21, 1968.[53] Although he devoted most of his life to writing children's books, Geisel had no children of his own, saying of children: "You have 'em; I'll entertain 'em."[53] Dimond added that Geisel "lived his whole life without children and he was very happy without children."[53] Audrey oversaw Geisel's estate until her death on December 19, 2018, at the age of 97.[54]

Illness, death, and posthumous honors

Geisel died of oral cancer on September 24, 1991 at his home in La Jolla at the age of 87.[19][57] He was cremated and his ashes were scattered. On December 1, 1995, four years after his death, University of California, San Diego's University Library Building was renamed Geisel Library in honor of Geisel and Audrey for the generous contributions that they made to the library and their devotion to improving literacy.[58]

While Geisel was living in La Jolla, the United States Postal Service and others frequently confused him with fellow La Jolla resident Dr. Hans Suess. Their names have been linked together posthumously: the personal papers of Hans Suess are housed in the Geisel Library.[59]

In 2004, U.S. children's librarians established the annual Theodor Seuss Geisel Award to recognize "the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year". It should "demonstrate creativity and imagination to engage children in reading" from pre-kindergarten to second grade.[61]

At Geisel's alma mater of Dartmouth, more than 90 percent of incoming first-year students participate in pre-registration Dartmouth Outing Club trips into the New Hampshire wilderness. It is traditional for students returning from the trips to stay overnight at Dartmouth's Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, where they are served green eggs and ham for breakfast in honor of Dr. Seuss. On April 4, 2012, the Dartmouth Medical School was renamed the Audrey and Theodor Geisel School of Medicine in honor of their many years of generosity to the college.[62]

Pen names and pronunciations

Geisel's most famous pen name is regularly pronounced /suːs/,[3] an anglicized pronunciation inconsistent with his German surname (the standard German pronunciation is German pronunciation: [ˈzɔʏ̯s]). He himself noted that it rhymed with "voice" (his own pronunciation being /sɔɪs/). Alexander Laing, one of his collaborators on the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern,[64] wrote of it:

You're wrong as the deuce
And you shouldn't rejoice
If you're calling him Seuss.
He pronounces it Soice[65] (or Zoice)[66]

Geisel switched to the anglicized pronunciation because it "evoked a figure advantageous for an author of children's books to be associated with—Mother Goose"[50] and because most people used this pronunciation. He added the "Doctor (abbreviated Dr.)" to his pen name because his father had always wanted him to practice medicine.[67]

For books that Geisel wrote and others illustrated, he used the pen name "Theo LeSieg", starting with I Wish That I Had Duck Feet published in 1965. "LeSieg" is "Geisel" spelled backward.[68] Geisel also published one book under the name Rosetta Stone, 1975's Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!!, a collaboration with Michael K. Frith. Frith and Geisel chose the name in honor of Geisel's second wife Audrey, whose maiden name was Stone.[69]

Political views

Geisel was a liberal Democrat and a supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. His early political cartoons show a passionate opposition to fascism, and he urged action against it both before and after the United States entered World War II. His cartoons portrayed the fear of communism as overstated, finding greater threats in the House Un-American Activities Committee and those who threatened to cut the United States' "life line"[44] to Stalin and the USSR, whom he once depicted as a porter carrying "our war load".[43]

Dr. Seuss 1942 cartoon with the caption 'Waiting for the Signal from Home'

Geisel supported the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. His treatment of the Japanese and of Japanese Americans (between whom he often failed to differentiate) has struck many readers as a moral blind spot.[70] On the issue of the Japanese, he is quoted as saying:

But right now, when the Japs are planting their hatchets in our skulls, it seems like a hell of a time for us to smile and warble: "Brothers!" It is a rather flabby battle cry. If we want to win, we've got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not. We can get palsy-walsy afterward with those that are left.[71]

The line "a person's a person, no matter how small!!" from Horton Hears a Who! has been used widely as a slogan by the pro-life movement in the United States. Geisel and later his widow Audrey objected to this use; according to her attorney, "She doesn't like people to hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view."[76] In the 1980s Geisel threatened to sue an anti-abortion group for using this phrase on their stationery, according to his biographer, causing them to remove it.[77] The attorney says he never discussed abortion with either of them,[76] and the biographer says Geisel never expressed a public opinion on the subject.[77] After Seuss' death, Audrey gave financial support to Planned Parenthood.[78]

In his books

Geisel made a point of not beginning to write his stories with a moral in mind, stating that "kids can see a moral coming a mile off." He was not against writing about issues, however; he said that "there's an inherent moral in any story",[79] and he remarked that he was "subversive as hell."[80]

Poetic meters

Geisel wrote most of his books in anapestic tetrameter, a poetic meter employed by many poets of the English literary canon. This is often suggested as one of the reasons that Geisel's writing was so well received.[81][82]

Anapestic tetrameter consists of four rhythmic units called anapests, each composed of two weak syllables followed by one strong syllable (the beat); often, the first weak syllable is omitted, or an additional weak syllable is added at the end. An example of this meter can be found in Geisel's "Yertle the Turtle", from Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories:

And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.[83]

Some books by Geisel that are written mainly in anapestic tetrameter also contain many lines written in amphibrachic tetrameter, such as these from If I Ran the Circus:

All ready to put up the tents for my circus.
I think I will call it the Circus McGurkus.

And NOW comes an act of Enormous Enormance!
No former performer's performed this performance!

Geisel also wrote verse in trochaic tetrameter, an arrangement of a strong syllable followed by a weak syllable, with four units per line (for example, the title of One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish). Traditionally, English trochaic meter permits the final weak position in the line to be omitted, which allows both masculine and feminine rhymes.

Geisel generally maintained trochaic meter for only brief passages, and for longer stretches typically mixed it with iambic tetrameter, which consists of a weak syllable followed by a strong, and is generally considered easier to write. Thus, for example, the magicians in Bartholomew and the Oobleck make their first appearance chanting in trochees (thus resembling the witches of Shakespeare'sMacbeth):

Geisel's early artwork often employed the shaded texture of pencil drawings or watercolors, but in his children's books of the postwar period, he generally made use of a starker medium—pen and ink—normally using just black, white, and one or two colors. His later books, such as The Lorax, used more colors.

Geisel's style was unique – his figures are often "rounded" and somewhat droopy. This is true, for instance, of the faces of The grinch and the Cat in the Hat. Almost all his buildings and machinery were devoid of straight lines when they were drawn, even when he was representing real objects. For example, If I Ran the Circus shows a droopy hoisting crane and a droopy steam calliope.

Geisel evidently enjoyed drawing architecturally elaborate objects. His endlessly varied but never rectilinear palaces, ramps, platforms, and free-standing stairways are among his most evocative creations. Geisel also drew complex imaginary machines, such as the Audio-Telly-O-Tally-O-Count, from Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book, or the "most peculiar machine" of Sylvester McMonkey McBean in The Sneetches. Geisel also liked drawing outlandish arrangements of feathers or fur: for example, the 500th hat of Bartholomew Cubbins, the tail of Gertrude McFuzz, and the pet for girls who like to brush and comb, in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

Geisel's illustrations often convey motion vividly. He was fond of a sort of "voilà" gesture in which the hand flips outward and the fingers spread slightly backward with the thumb up. This motion is done by Ish in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish when he creates fish (who perform the gesture with their fins), in the introduction of the various acts of If I Ran the Circus, and in the introduction of the "Little Cats" in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. He was also fond of drawing hands with interlocked fingers, making it look as though his characters were twiddling their thumbs.

Geisel also follows the cartoon tradition of showing motion with lines, like in the sweeping lines that accompany Sneelock's final dive in If I Ran the Circus. Cartoon lines are also used to illustrate the action of the senses—sight, smell, and hearing—in The Big Brag, and lines even illustrate "thought", as in the moment when the Grinch conceives his awful plan to ruin Christmas.

Recurring images

Geisel's early work in advertising and editorial cartooning helped him to produce "sketches" of things that received more perfect realization later in his children's books. Often, the expressive use to which Geisel put an image later on was quite different from the original.[85] Here are some examples:

An editorial cartoon from July 16, 1941[86] depicts a whale resting on the top of a mountain as a parody of American isolationists, especially Charles Lindbergh. This was later rendered (with no apparent political content) as the Wumbus of On Beyond Zebra (1955). Seussian whales (cheerful and balloon-shaped, with long eyelashes) also occur in McElligot's Pool, If I Ran the Circus, and other books.

Another editorial cartoon from 1941[87] shows a long cow with many legs and udders representing the conquered nations of Europe being milked by Adolf Hitler. This later became the Umbus of On Beyond Zebra.

The tower of turtles in a 1942 editorial cartoon[88] prefigures a similar tower in Yertle the Turtle. This theme also appeared in a Judge cartoon as one letter of a hieroglyphic message, and in Geisel's short-lived comic strip Hejji. Geisel once stated that Yertle the Turtle was Adolf Hitler.[89]

Little cats A, B, and C (as well as the rest of the alphabet) who spring from each other's hats appeared in a Ford Motor Company ad.

The connected beards in Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? appear frequently in Geisel's work, most notably in Hejji, which featured two goats joined at the beard, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., which featured two roller-skating guards joined at the beard, and a political cartoon in which Nazism and the America First movement are portrayed as "the men with the Siamese Beard".

Geisel's earliest elephants were for advertising and had somewhat wrinkly ears, much as real elephants do.[90] With And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street! (1937) and Horton Hatches the Egg (1940), the ears became more stylized, somewhat like angel wings and thus appropriate to the saintly Horton. During World War II, the elephant image appeared as an emblem for India in four editorial cartoons.[91] Horton and similar elephants appear frequently in the postwar children's books.

While drawing advertisements for FLIT, Geisel became adept at drawing insects with huge stingers,[92] shaped like a gentle S-curve and with a sharp end that included a rearward-pointing barb on its lower side. Their facial expressions depict gleeful malevolence. These insects were later rendered in an editorial cartoon as a swarm of Allied aircraft[93] (1942), and again as the Sneedle of On Beyond Zebra, and yet again as the Skritz in I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew.

There are many examples of creatures who arrange themselves in repeating patterns, such as the "Two and fro walkers, who march in five layers", and the Through-Horns Jumping Deer in If I Ran the Circus, and the arrangement of birds which the protagonist of Oh, the Places You'll Go! walks through, as the narrator admonishes him to "... always be dexterous and deft, and never mix up your right foot with your left."

Publications

Geisel wrote more than 60 books over the course of his long career. Most were published under his well-known pseudonym Dr. Seuss, though he also authored more than a dozen books as Theo LeSieg and one as Rosetta Stone. His books have topped many bestseller lists, sold over 600 million copies, and been translated into more than 20 languages.[7] In 2000, Publishers Weekly compiled a list of the best-selling children's books of all time; of the top 100 hardcover books, 16 were written by Geisel, including Green Eggs and Ham, at number 4, The Cat in the Hat, at number 9, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, at number 13.[94] In the years after his death in 1991, two additional books were published based on his sketches and notes: Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! and Daisy-Head Mayzie. My Many Colored Days was originally written in 1973 but was posthumously published in 1996. In September 2011, seven stories originally published in magazines during the 1950s were released in a collection titled The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories.[95]

Adaptations

For most of his career, Geisel was reluctant to have his characters marketed in contexts outside of his own books. However, he did permit the creation of several animated cartoons, an art form in which he had gained experience during World War II, and he gradually relaxed his policy as he aged.

In 1959, Geisel authorized Revell, the well-known plastic model-making company, to make a series of "animals" that snapped together rather than being glued together, and could be assembled, disassembled, and re-assembled "in thousands" of ways. The series was called the "Dr. Seuss Zoo" and included Gowdy the Dowdy Grackle, Norval the Bashful Blinket, Tingo the Noodle Topped Stroodle, and Roscoe the Many Footed Lion. The basic body parts were the same and all were interchangeable, and so it was possible for children to combine parts from various characters in essentially unlimited ways in creating their own animal characters (Revell encouraged this by selling Gowdy, Norval, and Tingo together in a "Gift Set" as well as individually). Revell also made a conventional glue-together "beginner's kit" of The Cat in the Hat.

In 1966, Geisel authorized eminent cartoon artist Chuck Jones – his friend and former colleague from the war – to make a cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Geisel was credited as a co-producer under his real name Ted Geisel, along with Jones. The cartoon was narrated by Boris Karloff, who also provided the voice of the Grinch. It was very faithful to the original book, and is considered a classic to this day by many. It is often broadcast as an annual Christmas television special. Jones directed an adaptation of Horton Hears a Who! in 1970 and produced an adaptation of The Cat in the Hat in 1971.

A television film titled In Search of Dr. Seuss was released in 1994, which adapted many of Seuss's stories. It uses both live-action versions and animated versions of the characters and stories featured; however, the animated portions were merely edited versions of previous animated television specials and, in some cases, re-dubbed as well.

After Geisel died of cancer at the age of 87 in 1991, his widow Audrey Geisel was placed in charge of all licensing matters. She approved a live-action feature-film version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas starring Jim Carrey, as well as a Seuss-themed Broadway musical called Seussical, and both premiered in 2000. The Grinch has had limited engagement runs on Broadway during the Christmas season, after premiering in 1998 (under the title How the Grinch Stole Christmas) at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, where it has become a Christmas tradition. In 2003, another live-action film was released, this time an adaptation of The Cat in the Hat that featured Mike Myers as the title character. Audrey Geisel spoke critically of the film, especially the casting of Myers as the Cat in the Hat, and stated that she would not allow any further live-action adaptations of Geisel's books.[105] However, a first animated CGI feature film adaptation of Horton Hears a Who! was approved, and was eventually released on March 14, 2008, to critical acclaim. A second CGI-animated feature film adaptation of The Lorax was released by Universal on March 2, 2012 (on what would have been Seuss's 108th birthday). A third adaptation of Seuss' story, the CGI-animated feature film, The Grinch, was released by Universal on November 9, 2018.

See also

References

^How to Mispronounce “Dr. Seuss”It is true that the middle name of Theodor Geisel — “Seuss,” which was also his mother’s maiden name — was pronounced “Zoice” by the family, and by Theodor Geisel himself. So, if you are pronouncing his full given name, saying “Zoice” instead of “Soose” would not be wrong. You’d have to explain the pronunciation to your listener, but you would be pronouncing it as the family did.

^Mandeville Special Collections Library. "Congress". Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss. UC San Diego. Archived from the original on May 12, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2012.

^Mandeville Special Collections Library. "Republican Party". Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss. UC San Diego. Archived from the original on May 12, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2012.

^ abMandeville Special Collections Library. "February 19". Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss. UC San Diego. Archived from the original on April 17, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2012.

^ abMandeville Special Collections Library. "March 11". Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr. Seuss. UC San Diego. Archived from the original on April 17, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2012.

^Bunzel, Peter (April 6, 1959). "The Wacky World of Dr. Seuss Delights the Child—and Adult—Readers of His Books". Life. Chicago: Time Inc. ISSN0024-3019. OCLC1643958. Most of Geisel's books point a moral, though he insists that he never starts with one. 'Kids,' he says, 'can see a moral coming a mile off and they gag at it. But there's an inherent moral in any story.'

^Mensch, Betty; Freeman, Alan (1987). "Getting to Solla Sollew: The Existentialist Politics of Dr. Seuss". Tikkun: 30. In opposition to the conventional—indeed, hegemonic—iambic voice, his metric triplets offer the power of a more primal chant that quickly draws the reader in with relentless repetition.